Shardchat destroys fun

Replies

I will never understand how anyone can say "Communication and planning is not intended by the developers" and keep a straight face.
They specifically upgraded the chat system to make communication between players easier. In theory, the ingame chat now allows for an ingame shard chat. And that is what the developers wanted. They even said so in the release notes.
The only thing keeping shard chats external is the fact, that the ingame chat is still garbage.
So, no: shard chats are not cheating. They are what the developers want. They specifically gave us (albeit crappy) ingame tools for it.

That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the kind of behavior described by the OP, but aside from that, everything else he said is simply wrong.

posts like these make me sick, players owning up to frauding the system and working around the clock for equal payouts.. remarkable how the devs over look this system.

A real hats off applause to you all who reject the chat thing and earn your rank, you’re the real winners.

Lol. Hilarious response.

First off, your username is clearly appropriately chosen.

Secondly, people cooperating to make sure we don't accidentally (or intentionally) waste crystals is hardly "frauding the system". It's communicating (which can be done even in-game - and has been made easier by the developers themselves) to maximize rewards....for everyone.

Your "applause" for people who ignore their shard mates, stomp on other people's payouts unnecessarily and create stress in game that is supposed to be fun is quite amusing. You must be loads of fun at parties.

Although it would never happen because there is no incentive for cg to do it, the easy solution would be to reshuffle the shards and make it a blind arena system where you only see rank, squad power & and what squad their running so we can check stats and mods.

I will never understand how anyone can say "Communication and planning is not intended by the developers" and keep a straight face.
They specifically upgraded the chat system to make communication between players easier. In theory, the ingame chat now allows for an ingame shard chat. And that is what the developers wanted. They even said so in the release notes.
The only thing keeping shard chats external is the fact, that the ingame chat is still garbage.
So, no: shard chats are not cheating. They are what the developers want. They specifically gave us (albeit crappy) ingame tools for it.

That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the kind of behavior described by the OP, but aside from that, everything else he said is simply wrong.

While I don't blame people for using them, it's a bit silly to think the Devs originally intended people to win trade & take turns on Discord channels.

They intended communication for co-operative play & chat - not for PVP arena collusion, it just turns out that the best use of it....

I will never understand how anyone can say "Communication and planning is not intended by the developers" and keep a straight face.
They specifically upgraded the chat system to make communication between players easier. In theory, the ingame chat now allows for an ingame shard chat. And that is what the developers wanted. They even said so in the release notes.
The only thing keeping shard chats external is the fact, that the ingame chat is still garbage.
So, no: shard chats are not cheating. They are what the developers want. They specifically gave us (albeit crappy) ingame tools for it.

That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the kind of behavior described by the OP, but aside from that, everything else he said is simply wrong.

While I don't blame people for using them, it's a bit silly to think the Devs originally intended people to win trade & take turns on Discord channels.

They intended communication for co-operative play & chat - not for PVP arena collusion, it just turns out that the best use of it....

Go google the definition of "collusion" and explain to the class how it is even closely applicable in most shard chat examples.

I have some free time this morning, so I'll help:

collusion: a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose

First off, shard chats aren't a secret. Cooperating to maximize everyone's payout is hardly illegal or deceitful - heck, it's not even "cheating". So please use accurate wording if you are trying to describe the situation.

I'm on both sides of this right now. In Arena I am in a shard chat that is all welcoming and easy to work with the players there.

In Ship Arena I found some connections that know people in my shard and they are not welcoming. Even though they won't let me in the chat I asked for a list of names and payouts so I can avoid angering players and being targeted myself. They have not provided this.

They (GA and TW) require a way higher level of skills and planning. Not even close (your 3 years of expierence are apperantly not enough). You cannot remove mods in GA so an ally of yours climbe on your expenses and than you cannot block your common enemy. That is first. Second, you have to plan and combine your resources way better in order to win. You have to know a lot more mechanics in order to be successful. when you are, for example at 4 mio you need 14x5 teams. At 4.0 Mio exactly, before you have excess of teams that can help you, it is extremely challenging to win without a skill. I can tell you, that there is not a single player who full cleared me since i went into the 4 mio braket... And i can tell you that people wiht 3 mio GP and 0 skill take first place at their payout because of the Mafia....
Another example of skill is the simple fact, that the megawhale of my shard cannot win a single GA, cause she has no clue what she is doing. And while in the Shard she has some kind of advantage because of the money she spend, she is hopeless behind against people at her GP.
Ergo... skills is more evidently in GA!

Ok let's just do it this way, please see below do you agree with this statement?, the one I was very specifically replying to.

I don't understand the OP, it sounds like he got invited and then declined it. Because he declined it he is getting hunted down probably because he is sniping the people in the shard chat during their payouts.
So one this is no one's fault but your own and you can not really pin this on anyone else you made your bed now you have to lay in it.
I am in a shard chat and honestly there are some amazing people in there and its fun to just talk to them. Learning about what they do and coordinating is actually a lot of fun.
You call this cheating because you are on the wrong end of it. When really how can the Devs stop it? Shard chats have been around since the start of this game if the devs wanted to stop it they couldn't because most of them use a third party communications app like discord.
So even if the devs wanted to stop them which I doubt they actually care they couldn't.
Right now so many people are running the whole Revan meta so that everyone can get into there shard chat but soon when the meta shifts a lot of them will just fall back down to what they normally were at.
It does still take skill to get up to the top rank, being in a chat makes it easier but you still have to be able to win the battles it takes to get up to the top. that can mean carving out the time for 5-15 battles in order to win the amount that you need in order to get up there. Personally, I'm waiting for the meta to change because I do not win consistently enough with mirror matches to stay at the top right now.

also lastly look at the amount of posts you see in the responses OP, there are people here with probably alot more knowledge then you so use what they say as a way to learn not an attack. @Noxfire27
edit: added that last paragraph

That is a very broad statement "skill". Is a baby saying mama, good in english? Ok, it takes a minimum required skill. A level, that is so low, i allowed my self to neglect.

A baby learning a skill by speaking mama, does not diminish the fact that speaking a language is a skill, no matter how much many of us take it for granted.

I was not trying to open that debate, and I agree that other aspects of the game require much more knowledge and bucket loads of skill to be the best. Arena does require that base level of understanding and skill we all need to exercise elsewhere, without it, you cannot win a match with any certainly. This is evident by the new people getting revan and complaining about timeouts, that is all I was trying to say.

Shard chats are simply a way for players to work around poor game design (that makes you play at a specific time by having rewards tied to rank based on that specific time). Chat just allows players to play when they can and not have to be on at 5 minutes before payout to guarantee not being sniped.

It also helps facilitate maximum payouts for people around "busy" payout times - since arena shards were not assigned based on "x number of players per payout times". In fact, since we can (finally) change our payout times, many shard chats actually help redistribute payout times so there is less conflict near the top, by spreading out the active payouts times.

I am NOT defending the behavior of players who run their shard chats more like a "mafia" - join, comply or get crushed. But I would suggest two things:

1) Shard chats can serve a greater good (better QOL for players that cooperate)
2) It's silly for players with the same payout times NOT to try to figure out how to cooperate/work together to maximize crystals, as opposed to constantly knock each other back and forth - all that does is waste crystals in refreshing and leaves unpaid max rewards at the top during those payout times.

Now, I also realize that not everyone who just got a new Revan, and has now decided after 3 years of ignoring shard chats and disregarding other players' payouts times, is going to warmly welcomed by their respective shard chats now. Honestly, them's the berries.

Funny that you say you don’t like chats which operate like a „mafia“ and your last sentence/paragraph (correct me if I am wrong) tells that you are NEVER allowed to be stronger at some point in this game because you HAVE to be a whale and join the shardchat. As if it was their right.

I'm sorry your shardchat sucks. Mine doesn't - didnt really need to try to get in back then. But being a newbie to the top 10, lets just say that most shardchats aren't going to be so welcoming since u might just end up as another whiny player who cant deal with the next meta and starts asking everyone else in the chat to remove mods for you. Not saying that you are, but from experience this can get very annoying.

Shardchats are ridiculous and they take all competition out of arena. Arena is about competing against everyone not colluding with other players because they’re afraid of being targeted and dropping down the ranks

I will never understand how anyone can say "Communication and planning is not intended by the developers" and keep a straight face.
They specifically upgraded the chat system to make communication between players easier. In theory, the ingame chat now allows for an ingame shard chat. And that is what the developers wanted. They even said so in the release notes.
The only thing keeping shard chats external is the fact, that the ingame chat is still garbage.
So, no: shard chats are not cheating. They are what the developers want. They specifically gave us (albeit crappy) ingame tools for it.

That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the kind of behavior described by the OP, but aside from that, everything else he said is simply wrong.

While I don't blame people for using them, it's a bit silly to think the Devs originally intended people to win trade & take turns on Discord channels.

They intended communication for co-operative play & chat - not for PVP arena collusion, it just turns out that the best use of it....

Go google the definition of "collusion" and explain to the class how it is even closely applicable in most shard chat examples.

I have some free time this morning, so I'll help:

collusion: a secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose

First off, shard chats aren't a secret. Cooperating to maximize everyone's payout is hardly illegal or deceitful - heck, it's not even "cheating". So please use accurate wording if you are trying to describe the situation.

you must have missed this post then, its not collusion. Also you can still compete. In my arena I know that there are some people I can not beat that is still competition

Shardchats are ridiculous and they take all competition out of arena. Arena is about competing against everyone not colluding with other players because they’re afraid of being targeted and dropping down the ranks

Competition and pay to win are oxymorons. Quite simply you are implying something exists that does not.

Yea, I am a F2P player all the way not a cent dropped on this game, yet I am in a shard chat and I have been in the top of arena and still can if I did my research and went it actually did the 5-15 battles I said above. People who say only whales are in the top are just lying to themselves because it is possible but you have to have good roster and understand the current meta.

Ah this is a fun read. Obviously it must be me, the big bad whale that set you off on this tantrum. Well let me give a little context to the story. Nox you have been doing what I would deem as the most egregious act in the game, knocking people out of their payout, costing them crystals after your payout is over! When you knocked me out of first today during my payout, I messaged you asking what your payout was. Obviously I realized we had the same payout so it was game on, I knocked you back. Then you tried reclaiming said spot and failed.

In the meantime two of the guys who had you in sight, who’s payouts are after ours and who you knocked back during their payout earlier in the week, decided to take some revenge on you and knock you back. There’s no shard collaboration going on here to make your life miserable, you are doing that on your own. So let’s put on the big boy pants now and own up.

Haha, sorry but i can't feel bad for the OP since it was his choice to not join shard chat when first invited.
My shard chat had been great, really nice people and we are share a common goal, get the most crystals from CG without taking away from others in shard chat. That's a pretty noble cause if you ask me, but for some reason the OP thinks it's cheating...
Anyway get over it, you made your bed, now lay in it.

Fun “shard chat” story. I’m not in my fleet shard chat. I am on my regular arena shard chat. I follow the same courtesies in fleet as regular arena; wait to climb. Don’t hit guys who haven’t had PO. I’m respectful as they say.

Sitting in first the other night about 15 minutes to payout (and my payout is just me) there’s no one else at my time that gets top 20. No one within hours actually.

Anyways. Got dumped off 1 by a shardmate. Hit him back and luckily won the fight. He has falcon. I don’t. Well they all have falcon. Sent my friend a message asking, “hey why’d you hit me off first? This is my PO hour,” he replied, “because you aren’t in shard chat.”

This is an anti-competitive practice that is the natural outcome of a system that can be passed off as poorly designed, but if left in place feeds spending. It's a game. It is fun when fair and competitive. Plotting together to game the system undermines that environment. In business, it is the stuff of lawsuits in the public interest. In government it is known as corruption. In school and sports it is known as cheating.

There are a lot of responses here and I didn’t read all of them, so sorry if I’m repeating what someone else said. It seems like hiding a player’s name would be a good start at preventing collaboration. Of course, for well established chats, it may also take some shuffling of players.

Personally, I’m in a fleet shard chat that’s helped us organize payouts, but I haven’t been invited to the squad chat. It’s difficult when you’re not in a chat to know when you’re attacking people during their payouts. As soon as I would cross into the top 60, they were quick to knock me back out. And it was certainly a collective effort to do so. Maybe I made enemies by hurting people’s payouts or maybe they just didn’t want to share with a new guy...doesn’t bother me either way.

I have no problem with the chats that just establish payouts to benefit more people, but I can see a problem when groups gang up on individuals simply to exclude them.